The results were no surprise to the regulars who every late summer and fall head for Cape May to hang out at a large deck overlooking a wooded area, a freshwater pond, some dunes, a World War II ruin, and the open water beyond - where the Atlantic Ocean and Delaware Bay meet.
On a good day, maybe 2,000 raptors will pass overhead from as far north as Greenland, typically hugging the coast on the way south. Up to 400 people will be on the deck, binoculars swinging skyward in unison when someone shouts out a good sighting.
Residents of the Philadelphia region are within a two-hour drive of not one, but two, hawk hot spots.
No. 2 for Birder's World readers, also not surprising to aficionados, is Hawk Mountain in Berks and Schuylkill Counties, where southbound raptors take advantage of updrafts along the mountain ridges. Incorporated in 1938, Hawk Mountain Sanctuary is considered hallowed ground for raptor-watchers.
It shows "nature is not far away," said Dunne, director of New Jersey Audubon's Cape May Bird Observatory. "You don't have to go to the Amazon or Kenya to see something extraordinary."
You don't even have to hike into the wilderness. The Cape May park has bathrooms. The bird observation deck, which has ramps instead of steps, is a mere 12 feet or so above a huge parking lot.
Watching raptors has become a kind of calling. Perhaps no other family of birds - perhaps including the NFL's Eagles - has as dedicated and ardent a fan base.
North America has more than 100 organized hawk watches, including ones at a gazebo at Rose Tree Park near Media and a deck on Militia Hill in Fort Washington State Park near Ambler.
Both sites, while anchored in the heart of suburbia, still log impressive counts. Last year, volunteers tallied more than 16,000 raptors overhead at Militia Hill. Then there's the one day in 1995, when a jaw-dropping 13,079 broad-winged birds flew by.
